Foreclosures and Debt

In spite of all the good intentions that the Banks and the Obama Administration had in mind when they initiated the Making Home Affordable loan modification program to stop foreclosure for home borrowers that were facing foreclosures, there were many borrowers unable to qualify for the program. Due to the inability of the “Making Home Affordable” program to help stop foreclosure for a large number of ineligible, willing applicants, foreclosures continued to spiral out of control. Many families despite their efforts to keep their homes, were unqualified for  foreclosure avoidance programs offered and had to give up their American Dream of home ownership that they worked so hard for.

Not so fast! Fannie Mae have come up with another option for slowing foreclosures, “Deed for Lease™ Program”. The Deed for Lease program announced by Fannie Mae in November, is a program designed to offer up another option for borrowers facing foreclosure who do not qualify for other stop foreclosure programs like loan modifications. The way it works is that qualifying homeowners facing foreclosure may be able to stay in their homes if they sign a lease and at the same time, voluntarily transfer the deed of the property back to the lender, also called “deed in lieu of foreclosure”. The primary aim of the Deed for Lease program is to help alleviate the problems associated with foreclosure, such as uprooting families, decaying neighborhoods and other harddships caused by foreclosures. According to the Vice President of Fannie Mae, Jay Ryan, Deed for Lease is another option for troubled borrowers facing foreclosures; [Read more →]

Tags: Foreclosure News, Stop Foreclosure by Jacky
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Exploding foreclosure rates have continued in 2009 in the U.S., especially in California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona. Under the Bush Administration there were programs initiated to help homeowners facing foreclosures starting in 2007, such as FHA Secure, Project Hope and others that did not appear to produce much fruit. Foreclosures continue to spiral out-of-control up until this day.

Now, President Obama and his Administration has rolled out what is sure to be a few of many programs to address the run away foreclosure rates and help about 9 million homeowners save and keep their homes. One such program launched this month is the “Making Home Affordable” Program. The “Making Home Affordable” program, is a two-prong approach for the foreclosure crisis that involves loan modification and refinancing programs for struggling homeowners. The loan modification approach is designed to bring lenders and borrowers together to modify the terms of their loan by lowering interest rates to as low as 2 percent for five years. After the five years, rates will rise to about five percent until the loan is repaid. For eligible borrowers, they will have to provide their most recent tax return and two pay stubs, as well as an “affidavit of financial hardship” to qualify for the loan modification program, which runs through 2012. Making Home Affordable modification program guidelines are as follows;

The home must be an owner occupied, single family 1-4 unit property (including condominium, cooperative, and manufactured home affixed to a foundation and treated as real property under state law). [Read more →]

Tags: Home Loans by Jacky
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Religious leaders and community activists and others gathered in Washington D.C. to meet with Federal officials, Congress and members of the Barack Obama transition team for a solution, such as more loan modifications and the like, to slow down the ever-growing foreclosure crisis that is affecting millions of homeowners. The religious leaders and prayerful were also there in Washington, D.C. to pray for some relief to homeowners facing foreclosure and eviction. Their prayers may have been answered, somewhat.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the largest home loan lenders in the U.S.,  have agreed to stop foreclosure and evictions for about six weeks beginning Nov 26, 2008 through January 9, 2009, just in time for the holidays. The suspension of foreclosures and evictions during this time period is designed to allow time for loan servicers to put in a place an efficient loan modification program to assist struggling homeowners.

According to Fannie Chief Executive Officer Herb Allison,

we felt it was in the best interest of both borrowers and Fannie Mae to take this extra step to ensure that homeowners with the desire and ability to prevent foreclosure have an opportunity to stay in their homes.

[Read more →]

Tags: Foreclosure News by Jacky
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In a bold move to try and slow down the foreclosure melt downs, JP Morgan Chase has put a stop to placing delinquent home loans into foreclosure for 90 days to try to help homeowners keep their homes. The Chase foreclosure plan will cease putting delinquent loans into the foreclosure process for 90 days as it puts a loan modification team together and implement their mortgage rescue plan. Their foreclosure prevention plan is intended to assist home loan borrowers at risk of foreclosure receive mortgage modifications. Loan modifications have been pretty hard to get in this mortgage crisis since many homeowners owe more on their home loans than their home is worth. A loan modification is the process by which the homeowner tries to get the terms of their loan modified to accommodate affordabilty. JP Morgan Chase plans to prevent unnecessary foreclosures with an independent review process to assist homeowners who may not need to be placed in foreclosure, and hire and train more staff for the caseload of loans.

Despite the fact that JP Morgan Chase is one of the largest banks affected by the foreclosure crisis, holding 1.5 Trillion dollars in mortgage loans, will be implement their plan on loans held by the bank which is only about 20% and the other 80% of loans are held by investors whose loans they service and are currently not figured into this plan, yet. According to Charlie Scharf, CEO of Retail Financial Services at Chase,

While Chase has helped many families already, we feel it is our responsibility to provide additional help to homeowners during these challenging times. We will work with families who want to save their homes but are struggling to make their payments.

One of the program’s first priorities, is to eliminate the negative amortization loans it services, most of which they inherited when they took over Washington Mutual Bank and EMC. This is a significant addition to its current foreclosure prevention program. [Read more →]

Tags: Foreclosure News by Jacky
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After several weeks of billion dollar lifelines being thrown to Big Business and Wall Street, there appears to be a growing consensus that the mortgage crisis was caused by low-income home buyers.  Many people believe that because low to moderate income home-buyers received SUBPRIME mortgage loans to buy their homes from banks and brokers who turned around and sold investments backed by those SUBPRIME loans on Wall Street, that these home-buyers are responsible for the financial crisis we are currently experiencing in the United States and around the globe. Many are pointing directly at the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was created to prevent redlining and discrimination in certain geographic neighborhoods by banks and lenders.

Just to name a few of the people blaming low income homeowners for “wanting the American Dream” are as follows from the Washington Post’s Clarence Page;

Neil Cavuto of Fox News opined last month that if banks hadn’t been forced to make loans to “minorities and risky folks,” the Wall Street disaster would not have happened.

Ann Coulter blamed “affirmative action lending policies” that loaded banks up with mortgages that eventually defaulted and brought the financial system to its knees.

George Will on ABC’s “This Week” blamed “regulation, in effect, with legislation, which would criminalize as racism and discrimination if you didn’t lend to unproductive borrowers,” because “the market would not have put people into homes they could not afford.”

And there’s Rep. Michele Bachmann, a conservative Minnesota Republican, who caused a stir in Congress by quoting an Investor’s Business Daily article that accused the CRA and President Bill Clinton of forcing banks to give out loans “on the basis of race and often little else.”

[Read more →]

Tags: Foreclosure Horrors by Jacky
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In an attempt to resolve the home mortgage foreclosure crisis, six major home loan lenders are offering to freeze foreclosures for thirty days. Project Lifeline is the latest response to ever-growing foreclosure rates by “Hope Now”, a government program formed to get a handle on the worst housing debacle in decades. Hope Now consists of a coalition of lenders, investors and non-profit groups that was created in October 2007, to work with the Bush Administration to try and get handle on the sky-rocketing rates of default filings and foreclosures.

Project Lifeline, announced today February 12, 2008, would temporarily stop foreclosure proceedings on homeowners who have fallen seriously behind in their house payments. [Read more →]

Tags: Foreclosure News by Jacky
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals plan for state assistance to stop foreclosures.

The Governor announced a public awareness campaign aimed at California homeowners who may be staring down the barrel of foreclosure. According to the Governor’s website, he stated,

“Our message is that lenders are willing to work with borrowers on finding a solution. But right now we are seeing homeowners who are afraid to even talk with lenders,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “In fact, loan officials have not been able to reach borrowers in more than half of all foreclosures. Some of these homes could have been saved, so seek out a solution now before it is too late.”

This 1.2 million dollar campaign is designed to educate California homeowners how and where to seek assistance with their mortgage to avoid foreclosure. California is one of the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure of homes.

Check out the Governor’s video below on his stop foreclosure plan.

[Read more →]

Tags: Foreclosure News by Jacky
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Home foreclosures facts and figures are in the news, on the t.v. and online almost on a daily basis. This trend can only mean that the number of homeowners facing foreclosure or have been foreclosed on, is growing rapidly. Many homeowners are seeking information on how to save their home and stop foreclosure by any means necessary. Is a bad credit loan the answer?

There are people who were just on the door steps of foreclosure and tried to refinance their current home loan with a bad credit loan or sometimes known as a “hard money loan”, only to be told that hey did not qualify. It seems ironic that if you wanted a bad credit loan that charges more fees and higher interest rates to try and avoid foreclosure, why can’t you qualify? If you have few late payments, you have the bad credit secured with real estate , so why not qualify for the bad credit loan?

Know the difference between a bad credit subprime loan and a hard money loan. A hard money loan is generally based on the value of amount seeking to borrow and the market value of the home, and is a type of subprime loan. If you have any equity in

[Read more →]

Tags: Stop Foreclosure by Jacky
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Today, Thursday November 15, 2007, the House of the U.S. Congress passed a bill aimed at mortgage lenders, that requires additional safeguards in the home loan process to prevent more mortgage loan crisis.

In a reaction to the huge number of foreclosures on home loans, the House passed legislation to put the hammer down on home mortgage lenders. The main idea of the bill is to make lenders responsible for borrowers who are unable to repay their home loans because the lender did not fully qualify them. The bill also wants mandatory licensing for lenders and to issue fines to lenders for leading unsuspecting borrowers to higher-risk subprime mortgage loans.

H.R. 3519 known as “Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2007” , sets standards and more guidelines for the mortgage loan industry in order to prevent more homeowners from falling into the foreclosure abyss.

It is expected that more than 2 million mortgage rates will adjust up in 2008, possibly triggering an avalanche of foreclosures in effect crippling the home loan and other financial markets further.

Of course, there is always some form of opposition on the political side of this bill. Some of the Republicans are saying that this bill will make it harder for people to refinance their mortgage loans with all of these requirements of mortgage lenders. In effect, under this legislation, the home owner seeking to refinance their home loan, may not qualify for a new loan and this will also fuel the foreclosure crisis! Below are a few things the legislation will provide. [Read more →]

Tags: Mortgage News by Jacky
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If it is not bad enough that your lender has foreclosed on your home, but there is a study that indicates the amount of money owed stated in the foreclosure notices may be incorrect! You may not owe as much as stated by the lender or there may be questionable fees charged in the foreclosure process. The bankruptcy courts are finding questionable fees charged to borrowers who file for protection under Chapter 13 Federal bankruptcy laws to try and save their homes in foreclosure and stop foreclosure.

Under a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, a debtor or borrower must file a statement of assets and liabilities under penalties of perjury declaring all monies owed and all income. A Chapter 13 Bankruptcy is also known as a “reorganization plan”. In other words, a Chapter 13 filing allows a debtor to try and get their financial house in order by making scheduled payments to creditors approved by a Federal Bankruptcy Judge. The repayment plan may be spread out over several years to allow the debtor to make payments to the creditor, that may be lower than their original monthly payments. In a Chapter 13 proceeding, creditors must also file a statement to the court declaring the amounts owed by the debtor, before a repayment schedule can be approved by the Judge. [Read more →]

Tags: Foreclosure Process by Jacky
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